Nottingham Trip

I've just spent 2 days in Nottingham - courtesy of work. I was sent down there to do help out with a resource shortage on a major project.
The hire car I was given had enough gadgetry in it to make Michael Knight envious. TFT display dashboard, in built Sat Nav, Bluetooth, USB port, a jack socket for my i-pod, text message display, pushbutton ignition, electronic parking brake, oil slick, ejector seat, machine guns etc.
Had to spend some time programming and configuring the Tech before I could think about driving away. The first thing the car did after pushing the button to start the engine, was to display a warning telling you not to get distracted and drive carefully!
I got to stay in the Crowne Plaza in the city centre - some fun and games negotiating the one way system to find this - even with a Sat Nav. Google Street View had proved useful the night before in helping me to recognise the location.
They gave me a room with a view - it overlooked the entrance to the Rock City nightclub, which explained the supply of courtesy earplugs and courtesy homeopathic sleep remedies. Fortunately it doesn't appear to be open on a Monday night.
Took the opportunity to visit some Old Friends, who treated me to tasty home cooked Tapas. Their younger daughter bakes a scrumptious chunky choc chip bun. Mmmmm! It was great to see them again, and have a guided tour of their new home/building project.

I Love My Job :-P

On the late shift at work last week and on call. Got called back in on Friday after I left at 10pm, got home at midnight. Saturday morning the phone went at 6am (false alarm) and then again at 9:30 am (another false alarm). Saturday night I had to be in for a release at 5pm, hoping to be out by 10pm, got home at midnight again! Sunday in at 8am hoping to be out at 7pm or later. Escaped at 7:30pm but had to go back in again later for another hour. What a weekend!

I don't do it for the money, I do it for the fun. (The more money I get, the more fun I can have).

Luckily I've got 3 days off. The plan was to do some decorating, but this morning I was having a well deserved lie in, when the work phone went again. I didn't make it to the phone in time to find out who was calling - Private Number (all the landlines at work show as this). I suspect someone was trying to summon me to a meeting, not aware that I'm on leave.

Perhaps there's an easier job? I've been thinking whilst painting the bannisters - looking at the standard of my paintwork - probably not!

Hangover Day

Hangover today, after a good night out last night. Leaving do for a work colleague.

Snacks and beer in the private area of The Newz Bar. On to Andersons Bar for more beer and man with a guitar, and a backing band in a box entertainment. Finished off the night in Revolution vodka bar in the Cavern quarter, dancing until 1am and taxi home.

Time Spotter.

Had to work on Saturday night/Sunday morning - Ended up being a long one 5pm until 6:30am.

Got to see the clock change on Unix from 01:00 GMT to 02:00 BST (i.e. GMT + 1). Yes that was the highlight of the night! - from this you can deduce just how interesting the rest of the job was.

Commuting

I've been on an Oracle training course Mon-Thu this week in Wythenshaw, beside Manchester Airport.

An hour of commuting through heavy traffic there and back again - glad I don't have to do this every day. I've found the quickest route in, M62-M6-M56, but this still involves queueing around the major motorway junctions.

Quite good fun to have propeller drive passenger planes fly low over the roof of the car though, whilst I'm passing the airport, and blasting out some heavy rock on the ipod/radio.

The Icing on the Crap Weekend Cake

Just to put the topping on a truly Crap Weekend - the job on Sunday morning took 6.5 hours instead of the 3.5 that was planned. Back into work again on Sunday at 6pm as planned for an hour.

Home again afterwards, boys bathed, stories and put to bed. Got everything ready for next week. Turned the laptop on at 11pm when the phone went. Called back into work again for yet another problem. Finished at 2am on Monday morning.

Much as I loathe weeks when I'm on-call, at least they bring in extra cash with which to enjoy those weeks when I'm not.

Hence no blogging, tweeting or facebook last night - catching up on ZZZZZ's instead.

Crap Weekend So Far

Late finish at work on Friday at 20:30.

Walked out to the front car park - "Dude, where's my car?!"
Answer - in the multi-storey car park that's only paid for until 19:00. Forgot to move the car round to the smaller free car park outside the main building. Charged £3.80 for the privilege of the stay.

Drove home, just pulling up outside the house, when the phone rings, and I'm called back to work to fix the problem behind a system alert that's just cropped up which needs immediate attention.

Home again at 23:00 for a whole hour of Friday night! Cup of hot chocolate and bed.

Back in again this morning for another couple of hours of pre-planned work. Home again at 11:00. Nipped round to the very local coffee shop to fetch back a couple of Lattes and second breakfast (old Hobbit's die hard).

Popped out again to give a mis-delivered letter to a neighbour to hear a loud crunch! The very same neighbour had just managed to clout our car with his whilst trying to park!

His fault, so a phone call to insurance to arrange repairs and a replacement vehicle.

New flat pack furniture delivery actually arrived on time. Crash bang wallop! Off the truck and into the house. Spent the next couple of hours rearranging the unbalanced pile that they'd left, so there's less chance of it falling on anyone whilst I work up the urge to put it together over the next 20 weeks or so :)

More joys of being in work planned for tomorrow morning, and tomorrow teatime. Remind me to seek out and burn the essay about 'the future of home working' that I wrote at college!

Consoled myself by playing Rayman Raving Raving Rabbids TV Party with the boys. It claims to be "The only video game that you can play with your butt" - I'm sure that Samwise can prove them wrong :)

Tonight's Cult TV

Family viewing tonight was Dr Who: The Waters of Mars. Two small boys were watching it by peering from behind cushions, which they were holding onto for extra safety.
This episode was right on form for us - and a family Cheer! was raised when we saw who's going to be in the next one.

Later After the kids had gone to bed, the latest episode of Fringe showed Dr Walter Bishop and his lab assistant wearing tinfoil hats to protect themselves from mind control. This is a running joke at work, whenever over zealous Security measures are being discussed - great to see the equipment in operation!

Queen Mary 2

A bunch of us have just nipped out of work to wave at the passengers coming in on this huge vessel, that's blocking our view of the Mersey.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8315670.stm

The stats say that it's 200 feet high from the waterline. Very impressive.
When they blast the ships horn it's shaking the building.

No Obligation

Had to take a day off work today to deal with a family crisis.
Whilst buzzing around in the car like a blue-arsed fly I got a call from work asking if I could volunteer for 6 hours of overtime tonight, under no obligation of course! Naturally I declined to oblige.

Dusk Till Dawn 2

It's another all-nighter planned at work for tomorrow night. Might get out before sunrise if I'm lucky.

How Far Can Too Far Go?

Spoke too soon... Did a Dusk 'til Dawn and beyond shift last night / this morning. I was just tucking into a Chinese meal when the phone went at 9pm. Saw the sun setting on the Mersey as I arrived at work. Saw it rising again around 4am. Finally got out at 11:30 am after much sweat and nail-biting sorting out a major problem with the computer system. If I'm supposed to be learning on the job, then I guess that this is what's known as a "crash" course :)

Thinking of spending my hard earned overtime cash on a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, so at least some housework gets done when I'm not at home. Need to do a bit of research to find out how good they are.

Work Hokey Cokey (in, out, in out...)

Late shift/on-call at work this week.
It's only Wednesday, and already I feel like I've been in for a fortnight.

Monday - finished at 18:30, back in for 20:00, phone rang half way there to tell me planned job had been cancelled, but I still needed to go back in to re-enable a backup.

Tuesday - finished at 18:30, back in at 20:00, job took 2.5 hours. Home at 23:00. Just about to go back to bed at midnight when the phone rang, called in for 2 hours to fix a problem.

Phone rang tonight at 21:00. Luckily this time just for info.

Roll on next week, when I get a couple of days off. Couple of family meet-ups with some old friends planned.

At least the kids are being entertained whilst I'm at work. Frodo and Samwise are both attending a Summer activity camp at a local P.E. college - they appear to be enjoying it. When they're not doing this it's either a cinema trip, or playing De Blob on the Wii.

Warning Light?

It was "one of those days" at work today - lots of activity, with problems coming in from all directions.
We asked for one of our Unix servers to be rebooted by a team that works remotely. This they did, but unfortunately they did a shutdown, rather than a reboot. Since the server was local to it we had to find it in the server room and push the button on the front of the server to bring it up again.
Sounds simple enough, but when we pushed the button a brilliant white light, adjacent to a klaxon symbol, started pulsing. If this had been an episode of Dr Who, then the server rack would have been dematerialising.
It was one of those "Gulp! - did we press the wrong button" moments.

Checked with the remote team - and that's what it does when it starts up normally. Phew! - but what a design? Why flash an "Aroogha!" symbol for normal operation??

Dark Satanic Mill

I've been at work for most of this Bank Holiday weekend.
Sunday was a change of scenery, although I was still working.
I spent the day in this ex-cotton mill (now a business centre) in Darwen.
The chimney tower of India Mill is a fantastic piece of Victorian built Italian inspired architecture, and is a landmark for the town - you can see it from the M65. I didn't really need my Sat-Nav to find the place, I just had to look for the big chimney.

Witch Hunt

Sometimes I wonder if the pressures of my job are really worth it...

Made a mistake today, not entirely of my own making, but it was me that clicked the button which didn't give me a warning before the deed was done. I've now got to spend time making notes for my defence, before they throw me into the lake to see whether or not I float...

Just what I need before I Bank Holiday weekend, where instead of relaxing, or mowing the lawn, I'll be in for two days carrying out some mission critical testing, one day of which involves a trip to another site. Whoopee! (Not!)

Free Beer

Had a work night out last night, to celebrate the succesful completion, delivery and release of a couple of high profile projects.

They had a free bar from 17:30 to 22:00, plus snacks, so I thought it would be worth attending.

I had a parents evening for Samwise (his teacher said that he's working well at school, and is starting to get a bit cheeky), and had to pick Frodo up from his first session at a new After School club for kids with Special Needs (which he enjoyed), so I didn't get there until 19:15.

Managed to make up for lost time all the same. Had a good night drinking, munching and gossiping - those of us who were left when the bar was closing all threw in a fiver each, to tip the barman. Rolled into a black cab with dodgy suspension and bounced all the way home.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas time again. Lots of work places wind down for Christmas - my place as usual winds up!

Didn't get home until 7:30pm tonight, because somebody was panicking and demanded an unnecessary server reboot, even though we'd agreed earlier in the day not to do it.

Got back just in time to nip out with the boys to a neighbours Christmas Party. They host one every year, just before Christmas - how they manage to do this with everything else that's going on beats me. They lay everything on and ask for a donation to a charity, which I'm quite happy to do.

The boys had a good time, and I got to chat with a few of the neighbours. I also met a couple of mad old ladies, who I've passed before now in the street walking their dog. We found that we had a few things in common, and had quite a laugh.

It's now officially Christmas Eve. I've got one last stint in work - hopefully I'll be allowed to shoot off early. I'm on call Christmas day and Boxing day - I've been assured that call outs are very rare when the systems aren't in use - but there's always a chance that something unexpected might happen. Rumour has it that any Christmas day call outs will be allowed to be responded to the next day - but that has yet to be confirmed.

The Goose is defrosting in the kitchen, and we're almost ready for the main event. The boys have been told that there's only 2 more sleeps to go. So time to wish all of my blog readers - whoever you may be - a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Appreciation

Did a 14.5 hour shift at work on Sunday starting at 1am.

Were my efforts appreciated? They should have been, but were lost in a "witch-hunt" over a couple of separate incidents, none of which were of my making, but I got caught up in them, so nobody said thank-you.

C'est la vie. I'll take my reward in cash.

QE2 II

People are getting a little excited at work, because the QE2 is heading into the Mersey on it's final voyage, before going off to become a hotel in Dubai.

I managed to see it go past the Baycam Web Camera at 11:05 - it's just showing the sea now.

It's just passed the entrance to the Mersey. Should be docked outside work around 12:30

Didn't bring my camera with me this time, but then I did get a few snaps of it last year

There's a bit more commercialism going on this time. Last year it was a just a few programs being sold. This year, as the crowd is gathering, I can see coffee stalls, hot dog stands, carriage rides etc.